Sunday, 16 April 2017

Examples of Crap I Waste My Money On: Bootsale Report 9!*

I have painted so many
fences, I have painted so many fences I now resent fences, I have painted so
many fences I close my eyes and see fences, I have painted so many fucking
fences that three and a half hours of walking ‘round a dustbowl looking at
other people’s unwanted tat felt like a long soak in a hot bath. I am so dusty;
I look like a half licked Cheeto.

Today’s bootsale experience
started off looking far from promising, it was cold and gloomy and below
average size and I felt like dogshit, passing out levels of feeling shit, it
came on pretty much as soon as I arrived - but by half ‘way round the sun was
shining, I’d had a shitty burger (I’m the only person for whom market food
heals rather than ills it seems, well the only person who gets this reaction
when they’re sober anyway) and I left with three carrier bags full of dirty
toys and a happy feeling, and dust up/in every-fucking-where.

While your thoughts on
Space Precinct may ultimately be the decider here as far as I’m concerned
there’s no duds to be found, sure that’s just a cheap hollow plastic Pokémon
just under the Warlord’s left hand but it’s also Octillery: a
fucking bazooka octopus, there’s never buyer’s remorse with a bazooka
octopus. Now let’s waste a thousand words or two talking about some of them in
some more depth eh? And as always I know that what I’m about to spotlight is
nowhere near the best items in that picture, that DragonFlyz figure? I wasn’t
even sure it was released; the dinosaur bloke next to The Sandman? Never seen
one in person before in four years of buying, that Valiant annual is from 1973?
it’s old enough to be a grandfather – but fuck that, let’s talk about Page 3
Girls and Playmobil, so are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin:

A Naked Mego
Ape!

£5 ($6.26)

This was a little treat to
myself, perhaps for spending two days painting fences, perhaps just because I’m
an indulgent prick, or maybe just so I could say I bought a Mego figure at a
bootsale. Yes he’s naked, yes he was strangely sticky, yes he was a fiver but
still something to brag about, especially if you leave all those details out
when doing the bragging – as I fully intend to do at conventions and on various
forums, I have so little life it’s counted in minus numbers. I’ve never said this about another male
primate before but I really like this lad’s pants, I want to believe they’re
actually the pants the figure wears out of the box and that Mego made special
little cave-man diapers for their Planet of the Apes toys so they were
canonically correct even down to their knickers. Speaking of knickers, and
being naked:

Samantha Fox
Strip Poker!

50p (63¢)

I’m not buying any more old
video games this season because this cannot be topped (heh, topped, how
appropriate) I don’t own a (functional) ZX Spectrum at the moment but there was
no way I was going to pass up the chance of owning a complete copy of Sam Fox
Strip Poker in such good condition for such little money, it’s going to live
next to my Mega Drive and make every day that little bit more 80’s and that
little bit more gay and who doesn’t want their days to be more 80s
and gay? Homophobic millennials I guess but I’m not one of those so bollocks.
Sam Fox, for the confused and young, was a Page 3 model - which meant she got
paid to get her tits out in The Sun newspaper, she was VERY popular and moved
on from getting nude (which she was good at) to singing (which she was ok at)
and presenting telly (which she wasn't very good at at all). In 1986, at the height of her
popularity, this came out: it’s exactly what you think it is and exactly as bad
as you think it could be, it’s an average poker simulator with pixelated
pictures of Sam Fox undressing and I adore it, it’s genuinely one of my
favourite games on the system. And stuff your Hot Coffee and your Manhunt, at
the time this was video game
controversy, for just £1.99 kids could buy bare knockers in WH Smiths, of
course they could get hi res colour shots of the same boobs in a newspaper that
cost pennies in the exact same shop but this time it was a video game! The
wrongness! Sam Fox is a national treasure, and yes I’m being serious, Dame
Samantha Fox, make it happen Liz, make it happen.

The Dirty
Stall Was Back!

£5 ($6.26) for
everyone dancing

Last weekend a new toy
stall was at Dunton Bootsale, I have dubbed it ‘The Dirty Stall’ because I am
creative, he was back again this week, I’m hoping he’ll become a regular. I
should have taken a picture; this bloke just has trays and trays of toys one
side of his van and then trays and trays of video games on the other. It’s
filthy, disorganised, vast, half the toys’re half broken but I think it’s
great: despite excellent prices and a great variety the dirt and ginormity
seems to keep most of the dealers, any anyone who hasn’t had all their jabs,
away but for someone like me – shameless and fully inoculated like I am – it’s
a treasure trove to explore, and I can explore it at my leisure without it
having first been picked clean by people who’re going to sell the stuff for
three times the price without cleaning
them. The results speak for themselves and prove my outlook on the stall
completely correct, check it out: Mezogog (who was only available in a box
set)! A Biker Mouse! A racial caricature
An early Corps figure! A ‘Mannix’ Bootleg that’re silly expensive online! A
COPS & Crooks figure! One of the hardest to find Captain Scarlet figures! A
Bazooka Octopus! A tiny Big that makes my logic centres overheat! Seriously!
That makes no sense! He’s called Big
the Cat! His purpose is to be big (and fish)! Why would you make a small thing
of a thing that’s claim to fame is being big?! That’s illogical! You make
Vulcans cry! And because of my willingness to risk tetanus for action figures
from the 1990s all of these lovely toys now have a home and someone who’ll
appreciate them and not leave them out in the dust and sun all day surrounded
by the severed limbs of their friends and families – and if you’re (real and)
thinking “whatever, you’re just going to put them in a box or on a shelf and
not really appreciate them like a child would”, know that I always fully
appreciate every Meowth.

Dinosaur
Playmobil!

£5 ($6.26) for
everything

Even though I’ve
subsequently told everyone who’ll listen that it was, I don’t think this was
quite the steal I was thinking it would be. Doing very speedy maths while the
stall holder reminded me how much Playmobil was in stores (and she’s right,
it’s bloody pricey) I figured that a fiver was a good price for the dinosaurs
alone, let alone dinosaurs plus a Playmobil volcano (when did Playmobil get so
cool? I feel like I went to the toilet one day and when I came back Playmobil
was badass) and a whole bunch of other stuff that I could sell on when I sell
at a bootsale a little later in the season. This is still true in theory but
I’ve ended up keeping so little of the set I ended up paying five pounds for a
t-rex, some velociraptors and the pleasure of having a bag full of Playmobil
rocks in my loft for a month. So while it was a good deal, maybe it wasn’t such
a good deal for me. Anyway you know that weird look Playmobil has? Like plastic
that’s not quite mixed properly? Like it should be rough but it’s really,
really smooth? That pleases my senses and my soul.

Sir
Ring-A-Lot!

50p (63¢)

A boxed, working and
(almost) complete (it’s missing a ring) T.H.I.N.G.S. game for the price of pixelated bazoomers a Cadbury’s Wispa –
and it’s one of the really good ones! Sir Ring-A-Lot! Sure he’s not quite as
magnificent as E-E-E-Gor or Eggzilla but he sounds way more like a sex toy and
for me he’s THE T.H.I.N.G.S. game,
the Lion-O or Soundwave of the line, the one you think of first when you think
of it (sorry Flip-O-Potomus). Acting as a weird mid-point between Travel
Boggle, Action Figure and Playset T.H.I.N.G.S. don’t get nearly enough love but
the people who do love ‘em seem to REALLY love ‘em, it’s often the way, talk to
me about Hornby’s Gladiators toys some time and watch me prove it. T.H.I.N.G.S
should not be confused with T.H.I.N.G.Z. that is a completely different and way
more extreme line of mini-figures who are also cool, but not quite as cool as
bats vs knights for shiny things.

Bendy Donald!

30p (38¢)

Last time we ended with a
Disney toy and it was a very negative story, so I thought this time we’d end
with a Disney toy and a positive story, also he doesn't stand up by himself so Sir Ring-A-Lot is being helpful. Earlier on in the bootsale I turned
down the chance to buy this, a bendy figure a couple of decades old now, for a
fiver from a bloke selling almost exclusively toy cars and computer components
(because of course). It’s not a bad price for one but not the level of bargain
that Disney toys generally need to be for me to buy ‘em. Come another stall and
the same Duck costs me 30p, this Duck though was much dirtier and splashed with
Tip-Ex and dried Slush Puppy (seriously, it’s all I can come up with for what
it could’ve been) but that’s not a problem for someone who’s been buying and
cleaning dirty toys for years now. So the moral of the story is: get to know
what you can and can’t clean from the things you want to buy second hand from
bootsales, yard sales, flea markets etc and you can avoid paying five pounds to
some I.T. douchebag with bad hair and his girlfriend and instead pay 30 pence
to some wide boy market trader and put the difference towards naked Mego
monkeys. This is the sort of shit they teach in church, mate.

And I’m out of enthusiasm,
luckily it’s Easter weekend so I have enough chocolate to top up the ol’
enthusiasm tanks with blasts of pure sugar rush for a couple of days now but
I’ll be kind and end this here before I do. I’ll leave you with this: I’ve had
Samantha Fox’s Touch Me (I Want Your
Body) stuck in my head since I bought her video game but you can’t sing
shit like ‘touch me, touch me, I wanna feel your body’ outload at a bootsale
where you’re surrounded almost exclusively by old women, fat men, the wives of
very religious fellas and dogs so now I’m gonna go fucking dance to it in my
pants, enjoy that mental image.